SEX IN
DEPTH The land of the Karma Sutra flunks
sex ed By William Sparrow
BANGKOK - Home of the Karma Sutra, a press
that screams about sex at every chance and a
population well over 1 billion, sex pervades many
aspects of daily life in India. Yet as recent
reports show, the country struggles to come to
terms with sexuality as educators, parents and
politicians squabble over sex education.
This week, the Ministry of Education in
Maharashtra State in Central India announced that
it was planning to reintroduce sex education to
the schools. The move comes a year after protests
by parents and politicians prompted the Ministry
of Education to pull its existing curriculum
because it was deemed "too graphic".
Apparently, black and white cartoon-style
cross sections of a penis or a vagina are too
graphic. In a country that struggles with
sexually transmitted
diseases, HIV/AIDS, unplanned parenthood, an
exploding population and gender selective abortion
- one might think sex education would be something
of a priority.
Unfortunately, it isn't. In
fact, sex education is banned in many Indian
states, a fact that's increasingly frustrating to
educators. "If somebody's life [could be] ruined
by lack of scientific knowledge it's the state's
responsibility to provide it," Vasant Purke,
education minister of Maharashtra, told media this
week.
Throughout India young people are
presented with sexual content in magazines,
newspapers, movies and on television and the
Internet. As someone who monitors sex news, I'm
amazed how often I receive news alerts from major
Indian daily news sources. But as for stories
about sex in India - there's nothing at all.
It is almost categorically a sex story
from the West that the Indian media have picked up
and run with sensational headlines like "Paris
Hilton sex tape released!" or "American Idol
contestant Antonella Barba nude pictures surface!"
Not to mention - for the tenth time - "Paparazzi
photograph catches Britney Spears without
panties!" The screaming headlines inevitably
conclude with the old "dog's dick", as exclamation
points are sometimes called by print media types.
It's tiresome stuff. Even Americans have
grown bored of such celebrity antics, so one has
to wonder why the average Indian would be
interested in this soft-core smut.
The
truth is they're not. Although Indians might look
up the pictures on the Internet - many could care
less about Britney, Paris and so on, if they even
know who they are. The fact is Indians are
interested in the sex angle of the so-called
stories. The sex angle, at least in its salacious
and entertaining aspect, is never mentioned in
local Indian news reports. In fact, other than
"bad news" - in the form of scandals, sex
education woes, sex crimes or prostitution busts -
the local and Indian media almost entirely shies
away from reporting on sex.
Considering
that India gave the world the Karma Sutra -
possibly the first illustrated how-to manual for
intercourse ever written - in the 2nd century,
India may have been one of the earliest countries
in Asia to have had a sexual revolution. In
international terms the Greeks were first in the
field, of course, but other than its open society
towards sex, the Greeks have accomplished little
since.
Getting back to sex ed: it's clear
the Karma Sutra shouldn't be used as educational
tool for young students. After all, it's an erotic
guide meant to heighten the pleasure of the sexual
act. However, in the country that produced it one
might expect a little more tolerance in terms of
talking openly about sex. It wasn't until 1972
that the Joy of Sex came out in America - a
time when the US was gripped by its own sexual
revolution. The US, which is considered downright
prudish by European standards, has mandatory sex
ed in public schools and doesn't seem to have a
huge problem with those cartoon penises and vagina
drawings found in sexual education schoolbooks.
Seriously, consider the following
scenario: A teacher steps before a classroom of
teenagers and says, "You may have noticed half of
you have one of these" while raising a cartoon
drawing of the penis and "The other half of you
have one of these" as the teacher lifts the vagina
image.
Continuing this hypothetical
lesson, the teacher would explain that, in time,
the students might discover the desire to have
these two physical interfaces interact. There are
myriad reasons for this, the teacher would
continue, for example, love, hormones or peer
pressure. Ultimately though, the blushing teacher
would get around to the fact that such interaction
- sex, obviously - can result in unwanted
pregnancy or worse, a life threatening disease.
The potential consequences of sex would seem
enough to sway everyone to advocate open talk and
government-sanctioned sex education.
But
in India, even simple lessons and straight talk on
sex are non-existent. On April 23 ministers of
Maharashtra's state government lashed out at the
Ministry of Education and Minister Purke,
characterizing his announcement to reinstate sex
ed as rouge and brash.
Shobha Phadanvis, a
female member of India's opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party, even absurdly warned that
introducing such a curriculum without careful
study could lead to an increase in teachers who
sexually abuse students - another controversial
issue in India's schools.
State Assembly
speaker Babasaheb Kupekar tabled the sex ed
proposal indefinitely on April 23, citing the need
for further consultation from experts and
academics. Meanwhile, another BJP member,
Mangalprabhat Lodha, called the proposal
"ignorant" and charged that it did not take into
consideration the cultural, moral and societal
factors of the people in the state.
True
enough, this controversy has a profound amount of
ignorance. The sex classes are aimed at educating
students in the ninth and eleventh years of
education, when they would be typically 14 and 17
years old. Logic suggests that at that age many
would've figured out a few things for themselves.
In the Western country where I was raised
sex education was at least a minor part of the
curriculum from the first grade - about seven or
eight years old - and it came up as a topic each
year thereafter. It was nothing shocking: those
penis and vagina cartoons were on hand and I
learned where babies come from.
But
parents in India are woefully conservative in
terms of sex. As such, they're unlikely to have
"The Talk" with their children. Sadly, it seems
children will be left on their own to learn about
sexuality. It's almost enough to make you
appreciate the global pornography network - aka
the Internet - exists. Hey, at least young people
can get information there while their parents
squabble about "controversial" issues. Here's a
message for India to mull over: damning your
children to unwanted pregnancy, diseases and
overall negative sexual experiences is not a great
way to manage your society.
William
Sparrow has been an occasional contributor to
Asia Times Online and now joins Asia Times Online
with a weekly column. Sparrow is editor in chief
of Asian Sex Gazette and has
reported on sex in Asia for over five years. To
contact him send question or comments to
Letters@atimes.com.
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